Answers on an Abbey Lee Kershaw postcard

kamel rachedi

She has been photographed by the best in the business. Now comes Abbey Lee Kershaw like you have never seen her before: as an illustrated postcard or greeting card, courtesy under-the-radar French illustrator Kamel Rachedi. This illustration has just popped up on Rachedi’s portfolio on online art community Red Bubble, where it's being offered as a postcard or greeting card (AUD 2.52) or one of various prints (AUD 18.00). And Kershaw isn’t the only supermod to have been sketched by Rachedi. Edita Vilkeviciute, Lily Donaldson and Naomi Campbell also feature in Rachedi's portfolio (that’s Vilkeviciute and Campbell, below, with the uncropped version of ALK). Rachedi does not appear to have a dedicated blog, but it's probably not a bad idea as the blogosphere has proven to be a tremendous springboard for emerging illustrators. Two cases in point: illustrator/bloggers Garance Doré and Danny Roberts, both of whose careers were launched via blogs.

all images: kamel rachedi via red bubble

Gemma Ward impresses the critics and a new artist mate

the sunday telegraph

As a teenager Gemma Ward conquered the fashion world. Now 23, she is slowly making her mark in the film business, with her fourth film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, due for release on May 20th. But how does she shape up as a theatre performer? Not too shabbily, according to reviews of her stage debut in The Perth Theatre Compay’s production of The Ugly One, which premiered on March 22nd. “Ward does well on her stage debut and, to her credit, is better as the 73-year-old reconstructed cougar Fanny than as Lette's younger wife” says The West Australian’s David Zampatti; “It's impossible to ignore her international celebrity as a beauty but, while this perhaps adds an unintended extra layer to Von Mayenburg's text, it does it no harm”.

the australian

Notes Perth Now’s Maria Noakes:

“Can she act? In a nutshell, yes, she can. But she’s still learning and it’s a big leap from the catwalk to the stage. Swinging between three characters including Fanny, a 73-year-old woman with a fetish for plastic surgery and the young wife of Lette, Ward only stumbled over her lines once but at times, particularly at the beginning, she looked somewhat wooden. However she made a good go of it and as the play hit its straps she warmed and seemed to settle into her roles. 

Her co-stars WAAPA graduate Benj D’Addario, Brendan Ewing and stage veteran Geoff Kelso out shone her but that was to be expected – the trio have years of experience under their belts.

No doubt given time Ward will come into her own as an actress. Despite her inexperience she is mesmerising to watch. It’s a surreal experience seeing the towering former international supermodel perform just metres in front of you and an experience Perth audiences wont forget in a hurry”.

The Australian's John Kinsella didn't think Ward was too bad, but concurred that there is definitely room for improvement:

"Gemma Ward, cast as Lette's wife, and also a 73-year-old CEO who lusts after the new Lette, makes yet another subtext. Supermodel, and one of the faces of her time on the catwalk, she becomes a mirror for proliferating narcissism. Ward was acceptable, and certainly knows how to use the stage and hold her glances. But her voice was thin, and though the roles were deliberately flat, she could have made them more dynamic. The play relies so much on skin-deep humour that she was well-placed with her industry background to bring this out".

 

Wards mother Claire, naturally, loved the play. After the show, she told a reporter that her daughter was a little bit nervous about the sex scenes:





Prepping for her stage debut is not the only thing Ward has been up to in Perth. She also found the time to pose for US-born, Perth-based artist Matt Doust, for Doust’s entry in the 2011 edition of Australia’s most prestigious portraiture competition, The Archibald Prize.

"I think he's extremely talented, he's going to go so far and I was very honoured to work with him" Ward told News Ltd. "Just the alignment of every feature on her face intrigues me" noted Doust - who set tongues wagging at a Prada dinner in Perth on March 15th, that the duo’s relationship may have developed a little further than artist and muse.

Doust is the second Californian-connected artist to become enchanted by Ward’s features.

Danny Roberts, an LA-based fashion illustrator and colleague of Ward’s sister Sophie Ward, has done over 100 Gemma Ward portraits.

Those who make passes at girls who wear glasses: the great Danny Roberts ripoff

danny roberts/wwd (top) dolce e gabbana/swide

Frockwriter has written about up-and-coming LA fashion illustrator Danny Roberts on several occasions. In August, I also profiled him for WWD, with the online version accompanied by a gallery of 21 images. Roberts' distinctive, expressionistic model caricatures are rapidly gaining currency across the net, via his Igor + Andre blog and his various fashion collabs. To wit, Roberts' 'Girls in Glasses' T-shirt, adapted from his mixed media painting based on Chanel's Spring 2007 collection and launched in April through London-based e-tailer Borders & Frontiers, seems to be a runaway hit. Several hundred units have been sold, with the shirt popping up in magazines, on punters on the Lookbook.nu auto street style site and on several high profile bloggers. Not counting a suite of knockoffs.

Given the song and dance that Italian luxury brand Dolce e Gabbana made about bloggers in Milan in September, seating several high-profilers front and centre at its main line show, you might assume that Dolce e Gabbana would be commissioning art directly from any bloggers whose work the company admires.

Although Roberts has yet to do any work for Dolce e Gabbana, there are nevertheless some remarkable similarities between this image, above, that was recently done by an in-house artist to illustrate sunglasses on Dolce e Gabbana's Swide website and Roberts' 'Girls in Glasses' illustration.

Meanwhile, here is the original Girls in Glasses T-shirt, below, as worn by (top to bottom) Fashion Toast's Rumi Neely, Les Mads' Jessie Weiss and Le Blog de Betty's Betty Autier.









And here are a few knockoffs:








Images:
1, 2: screen grabs yesstyle.com
3: ebay
4,5,6: screen grabs supplied by Danny Roberts